A display of striking, contemporary glass vases waited on the counter where I paid for my bulbs in the Heath family’s Bulb Shop in Gloucester last week. A Hyacinth bulb nestled in the curves of one of them; with thick white roots emerging from its base reaching into the water below. These were tall, crystal clear vases designed for forcing bulbs indoors during the winter. Their height allowed room for the bulb’s roots to grow freely, as they do...
Vibrant Fall Foliage Are you drawn to bright scarlet leaves in autumn? You have probably admired sumac shrubs growing along the roadsides even if you didn’t know their name. Sumac’s huge, compound leaves can grow to two feet long, made up of as many as 31 leaflets arranged along its colorful central stem. They are deep green and glossy through much of the year, until they turn golden, orange, scarlet, or even deep purple from September until the leaves finally...
Fragrant Gardenia Flowers Fragrance often announces the shift in our seasons, alerting us to look more carefully for what has changed since the day before. In June, a languid sweetness in the air calls our attention to the first flowers opening on the Gardenia shrub, a fixture in many Southeastern gardens, including residential gardens in coastal Virginia. Pristine, white and elegant, Gardenia flowers tend to fade all too quickly. Their beauty is ephemeral as they fade first to beige...
Deciduous Shade Trees Quercus spp., Oak Acer spp., Maple Betula spp., Birch Corylus americana, American Hazelnut Fagus grandifolia, American Beach Juglans nigra, Black Walnut Platanus occidentalis, American Sycamore Liquidambar styraciflua, American Sweetgum Carya illinoinensis, Pecan Carya spp., Hickory Salix spp., Willows Flowering Deciduous Trees Aesculus pavia, Scarlet Buckeye Amelanchier laevis, Allegheny Serviceberry Cercis canadensis, Redbud Cornus spp. Other Dogwood species Cornus florida, Flowering Dogwood Lagerstroemia indica, Crape Myrtle Liriodendron tulipifera, Tulip Poplar Magnolia virginiana, Sweetbay Magnolia Magnolia spp....
Leaves float on every strong breeze, covering our walks and driveway just hours after we last cleaned them. The many different species of trees in our community almost guarantee that we will have a long season of managing fallen leaves and pine tags. Leaves may begin to fall in August or September, particularly when the weather is dry. And some trees hold onto their leaves until the following spring. So cleaning up fallen leaves is more of an ongoing...
Pawpaw Flowers Pollination Challenges Pawpaw flowers are a dull red to purple color which resembles rotting meat, and they have a putrid odor to attract the flies and beetles that pollinate them , much like native skunk cabbage and jack-in-the pulpit. Pawpaw’s small flowers have six petals and are rarely larger than a half-dollar. These are ‘perfect’ flowers, having both male, pollen bearing stamens and a female pistil, whose base will develop into the fruit after about five to...
The Elements of Life Water, light, and air fuel our lives. We depend on them, as does every plant and animal. Light energy powers the chemistry of photosynthesis to transform elements like carbon and hydrogen into sugars, food. Oxygen fuels the production of life energy in every living cell. And water fills every cell of every living creature; gives us sap and blood; powers every process of life. There is no life, not even the tiniest microbe, without water. ...
The Fern Solution Once upon a time, I considered ferns the magical solution to most of my gardening challenges. Deep dry shade? Plant some Polystichum, Christmas ferns. Soggy shade? Plant some cinnamon or ostrich ferns. A wet meadow in partial sun? Marsh ferns, Thelypteris, will thrive. Winter color in part sun? Plant some Dryopteris ‘Autumn Brilliance’ ferns. Deer? Bunnies? No worries, grazers normally ignore the ferns, and especially avoid the Cyrtomium holly fern species. Slopes with too much erosion? ...
A Mythic Forest The American beech, Fagus grandifolia, once covered most of North America from Canada to Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. Before colonists cleared our ancient forests for farmland, large beech groves grew as part of the climax forest community. A single beech tree can live for centuries, and as it ages it surrounds itself with sapling trees growing as suckers from its relatively shallow root system, forming an expanding grove of graceful beech trees....
“To use the world well, To be able to stop wasting it and our time in it, we need to relearn our being in it.” Ursula Le Guin A friend and I were chatting about recipes one afternoon. She is a talented cook and loves to feed her friends and loved ones. I asked for the recipe for something delicious she had served, and she avoided disclosing the details. Finally, she gently explained that among her family, no...